


King of the Castle

by medusatree



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Post-Time Skip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:13:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22828489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/medusatree/pseuds/medusatree
Summary: Castle Blaiddyd hosts its ruler once more.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 2
Kudos: 99





	King of the Castle

Castle Blaiddyd was not the Imperial Palace.

(If one really wished to be specific, it wasn’t Castle Blaiddyd either: the castle at the center of Fhirdiad was an Adrestian edifice claimed by a rebel, and the real Castle Blaiddyd lay in stones and ruins on the Tailtean Plains. No one wished to be that specific, except for kings and dukes and perhaps the wild sheep who grazed there and tried to eat their sons’ hair alongside the grass.)

The Imperial Palace sprawled with government buildings, gardens, and consorts’ private residences; a small city in gilt and pillars and secret passages. Castle Blaiddyd, even crowded as it was with baileys and barracks, did not come near to matching it for size.

Dimitri strode through the hallways of the royal apartments and ignored the way the stone walls tried to close in on him. Cornelia had preferred to remain in her own rooms in the south wing and left these mostly untouched. Considering the foul things that had already been dragged out from hidden compartments and false walls, he should be grateful that she was so contained.

He wasn’t. During the war Dimitri had slept in the barracks with everyone else. He’d spent just one night here since he left for the Officer’s Academy more than six years ago, and the apartments’ safety being suspect would have been an excellent excuse to delay the next one.

He walked past an open doorway and caught a glimpse of pale green.

Byleth was sitting in the solar. Byleth was. In the solar.

It had been an unfortunate situation for Faerghus that for much of Dimitri’s life, the royal family had consisted of only two members. His father had maintained court life as best he could without a consort, his uncle had stayed in Itha where he answered to no one, and Dimitri—well. Dimitri had been too young to do much more than stand at his father’s side when ceremony called for it and remember his lines.

Dimitri wondered what it must have been like, for just two people to rattle around in a palace meant to fit a glut of heirs, and wished for something he hadn’t for a long time.

The castle had been enormous when he and the others were children. When they were six Ingrid had stolen and eaten herself sick on an entire bowl of whipped cream from the kitchens, and when they visited during the winter they had played in the snow-filled courtyards and humid greenhouses. Gustave had shown him all the castle’s many armories and explained what each weapon was for, voice flat and affectionate. The warhorses in the stables had taken carrots from him with soft lips, one hand kept flat and the other tucked against his chest so there was no chance he would hurt them. His father had always been busy with more important matters, but he had made time for his son nevertheless. He had watched his lance drills early in the morning while the city woke, and brought him books from the library when he visited before bed, and shown him the solar when he’d asked about his mother.

Usually—usually a king’s remarriage would have meant political upheaval, but his stepmother’s presence had never been public. Now he wondered whose decision that had been. Certainly it would have been a diplomatic nightmare for one ruler to openly marry another’s—consort, but perhaps if Edelgard had not been the only survivor among her siblings…

But instead of a balcony and a crown Patricia got a solar and a window. And she had seemed happy with that, when Dimitri was there with her. He remembered—sitting on the rug, her sewing basket full of color in his lap, and telling her about the letter he had gotten from Glenn about the Battle of the Eagle and Lion, or what Sylvain said Sreng looked like from the watchtowers, or the horses Ingrid had seen at a fair, and she had smiled at him like she had never wanted to be anywhere else.

Then the world had shrunk. To his room. The library. The training grounds. Dedue. The king’s study, on the rare occasions his uncle had wanted to speak to him. The laboratory, before he understood that with his stepmother gone her only friend no longer felt the need to pretend interest in him.

The throne room, once he had returned from the west with his lance and his hands red. The council chamber, once everyone had seen what a true prince he was.

The prison cells.

“-tri?”

Byleth watched him from a chair in a room meant for—Dimitri blinked, and swallowed past the lump in his throat, and stepped over the threshold.

Her lap and the table were covered with letters. A scan of the seals confirmed them to be mostly from churches and monasteries who must have written as soon as they got a whisper of a new Archbishop. Seteth kept making noise about having proper regalia made for her coronation, but for now she wore the same blacks and grays as ever. Dimitri suspected she had recruited Flayn to inform her of his movements. He sympathized, although the idea of her wearing more blue was—appealing.

“I'm sorry for not helping with the cleaning.” Byleth gathered the papers off the chair nearest her, emerald ring catching the sunlight. “I need to read these as soon as possible so we can start drafting responses, and people keep finding me.”

“I don’t think either of us are needed.” He was distracted. Embarrassingly so. “Cyril and Annette took the reins and and sent me away.”

Byleth laughed softly and nodded at the chair. “In your own castle?”

“I thought it the better part of valor to retreat. Felix is helping them, and the room was getting crowded.” When he had left Annette was humming under her breath and Cyril was glancing between her and Felix, who glared straight at him as if daring him to interrupt. He sat down as carefully as if he were wearing armor. “My thanks for giving me shelter.”

She tipped her head in a question. “Me?”

Dimitri cleared his throat. “I’m sorry I haven’t given you a tour yet. But this is the queen’s solar. It doesn’t belong to me.” Tradition was very clear on that point. The queen had the right to shut the door in the king’s face if she so wished. It was a right no one else in the castle shared, at least not in writing.

Byleth’s hands paused. Dimitri watched her turn in her seat to study the details of the room. The stone griffons supporting the fireplace, the coffered ceiling gilded with the Crests of the Saints. The tapestries covering the walls had come from Gwenhwyfar with his mother and showed the holy mountains and northern sea under glittering blankets of stars, and it was ridiculous to be so pleased over something he had nothing to do with. Her slight smile when she turned back to him made that seem irrelevant. “So. I do have somewhere to hide even after I’m queen.”

“You have somewhere to hide now,” he said, and tried not to melt when her smile grew larger.

The kiss was slow and warm, her hand coming up to hold the back of his neck. He caught it as they parted and pressed another kiss to her fingers, just above her ring. Byleth bumped her knees against his. “Hide with me,” she said, and picked up another letter.


End file.
